A blog about media and technology. Sorry, no cat GIFs.

Monthly Archives: July 2014

Lest you think that net neutrality is just about curbing the excesses of Internet service providers, two mobile carriers showed this week that they can play the pay-for-access game, too.

Sprint, for starters, has offered a low-cost unlimited data plan under its Virgin Mobile brand: $12 a month for all the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest that you want.

That’s not an “and”; that’s an “or.” It does not include, presumably, email, Web browsing or streaming music. That last one is available, though, for an additional $5 a month.

It might seem like a great deal, but it’s a deal that only allows you partial access to the Internet. I know many people spend lots of time on Facebook, but imagine if that were your only portal to the online world.

Imagine if all you knew of the Internet was this.

Sprint’s move may be cheap, but it only gives you a partial portal to the Internet. It’s a bad deal for consumers, sure. Worse, it’s a chilling sign of what mobile carriers — and ISPs (why not?) — could do to restrict consumers’ access to the Internet. It’s preferential treatment to certain content providers, namely Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram,

Say what you will about the many ways the Internet has changed over the past few decades. Its one constant principle is that it’s a wide-open playground. You may have to pay for parts of it (including paywalled newspapers), to be sure, but that’s a decision made by the content provider, not the ISP or the mobile carrier.

Now, it seems, carriers can decide where they will carry you.

Verizon, meanwhile, has gotten the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Tom Wheeler (of all people!) sent the company a strongly worded letter expressing concern about Verizon’s plan to slow down data speeds for some customers.

Verizon, according to cnet.com, announced plans to slow down some customers’ data speeds during times of high congestion. It is “only targeting cell sites experiencing high demand,” the company said in a statement.

What got the FCC’s attention? Only customers with unlimited data plans are affected. Those who have usage-based data plans won’t experience these slowdowns.

In short, the Network Optimization strategy seems to be driven not by how much the network is used, but by who’s using it.

No wonder Verizon got the FCC’s attention. We’ll have to see how this affects the debate over the agency’s “Open Internet” rules.

One hundred years ago this week — Monday, to be specific — World War I broke out when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

The conflict deserved to be front-page news, even though the United States wouldn’t enter the war for another three years. In Reading, members of the Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian and Slavic communities were prepared to head back to those countries to join the fight.

In the first day or so, however, the war wasn’t great enough to warrant exclusive space at the top of the page. As you can see, newspaper design was much different a century ago than it is today, but the battle for eyeballs was no different then. Today news websites aim to put as many headlines as possible at the top of their home page, just as the editors of the Reading Eagle and others crammed as many headlines as they could onto the front page.

That must be why the July 28, 1914, edition of the Reading Eagle carried the all-important news of war in Europe, but it also made room at the top for a story about a woman who was the first to receive a hunter’s permit that season.

I will post more images from the early days of World War I throughout this week and next. Let me know what you think.

El Tronco de Lily’s the first stop on a lengthy adventure to try all the Latino restaurants in Reading.

If you think about eating out in Reading, you probably think of the classics: Judy’s on Cherry, Panevino, The Peanut Bar and others. (My apologies for not including your restaurant; series in a sentence should be limited to three.)

While I have nothing against these fine establishments, I’m interested in –

Let me back up.

About two years ago, a nondescript white truck pulled into the parking lot behind the Reading Eagle. It was a taco truck, and the food served out of the back of that truck was some of the best I’d ever eaten. And I’ve had tacos in Mexico.

I decided to embark on a two-fold quest: first, to find out where that taco truck sells its wares on days when it doesn’t show up at work (which, sadly, is nearly every day of the week), and second, to see what other Latino food this fine city has to offer. I see lots of restaurants and taquerias as I travel around Reading, always wondering: What’s the food like there?

So my colleague Anthony Orozco and I decided to find out. This is the first installment of our regular series on the Latino restaurants of Reading – seeking them out sampling the food and writing about it. We hope you like it, and feel free to comment. Also feel free to suggest places we should visit.

Most of the food listed above was prepared ahead of time and is served out of hotel pans. El Tronco charges by the plate for many of these dishes, so you can have as much or as little of that fare as you like. The fish had a good taste and was nice and moist, although I prefer my sea creatures grilled.

Chicken mofongo, one of the most delicious and unhealthy ways to eat chicken.

The chicken mofongo, a plantain-based dish that resembles corned-beef hash, was freshly made and my favorite. It has a savory taste, thick texture and while it came with a red sauce, didn’t taste dry. I liked it so much I also had it for lunch the next day.

That’s mainly because I wasn’t able to eat a full serving of it all at once.